


in a single bound

by themartianwitch



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Brief Mention of Potentially Dead Children (in line with what would be discussed in the show), Burns, Conner shifts into dad mode, F/M, Gen, Major Character Injury, someone other than Violet gets terribly injured for once, using the canon pronouns for Violet and Forager at the time of writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 13:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20009407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themartianwitch/pseuds/themartianwitch
Summary: "Conner knows enough about the average body to know there’s no such thing as a 'heartstring,' but he can swear something already taut in his chest yanks and snaps at her words. He wants to say 'you’re sounding more like one of us every day,' though he’s not sure how comforting the sentiment would be. A hand on her shoulder is a better start."Violet's powers have limits. Set between S3EP17-S3EP18.





	in a single bound

Smoke. Five heartbeats, not counting his own, scattered in distance. All beating in a frenzy, including the one directly underneath him—Traci’s. He slides the rubble off his back and unlocks his arms from around her, letting her see light again.

That light is all fire. Conner’s eyes find Violet far enough away that her shielding aura barely registers in his vision against the rising of red-orange flames around her, but even as she shuffles backwards, she seems untouched. His instinct is to shout to her, but just as he opens his mouth, a support beam falls between them that sends embers blazing around it in a roar so deafening, he can barely hear Traci’s scream even as he bends to cover her. His arms wrap right back around Traci, and he prepares his stance for leaping.

_[Halo, fly—]_

Link down.

_She’s out of range_ , he tells himself, a band-aid thought over his own heart to keep the sound of it from drowning out all others. The blast could have flung M’gann away from the site if she was already off the ground. He can’t remember his exact last visual on her, or the exact gap off the top of his head between her telepathic range and his hearing, but—

But first priority is helping the rookies, not the other senior operative. He taps the communicator in his ear. “Halo, listen to me, the only way out of this is _up_. Brace yourself for backdraft when you switch auras, the flames _will rise_ with you initially, but just _keep going_ and _go!”_

His own feet take him and Traci high up above the fire, and the moment they leave the ground, the flames overtake the cradle of rubble that had bought him time to think. Next priority is landing somewhere safe, steering his body with the limited control he has once he’s in the air, but he spares a quick glance over his shoulder to see that Violet followed his instructions, and is now following his lead.

_[Good job,]_ he projects on reflex. Feeling it fade at the boundaries of his own mind, he remembers no one can hear him, and the ground closes in. That brief drop in focus, and his shoulder makes first impact with unscorched earth instead of his feet. He and Traci both grunt as momentum sends them bouncing and spinning out across the grass, kicking up chunks of earth along the way, and all he can do is make sure to be the one with their back to the ground when they stop.

“Eh, stop, drop, and roll,” Traci quips as she puts a hand to her dizzy head. “B-but if that was me, I’m sorry!” She leaps to her feet, only to immediately stumble backward. Energy ripples off her palm as she catches herself on the trunk of a nearby tree, and the lowest hanging branch slips clean off at its base, crashes beside her. She jumps back from it as if expecting it to combust.

Conner puts a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. “ _That_ was you, but you’re alright?”

Traci nods.

“Good, then next objective is finding the…”

He trails off as a blaze of orange hurtles down towards them—mistakable for stray debris at first, but soon clearly in the shape of Violet. She follows his example maybe too well, tumbling to the ground, lacking the raw strength to break ground but visibly flaming along her calves until her aura switches from orange to her namesake. The smoke dissipates around the holes in her suit as already-superficial burns fade away to nothing, and as soon as she can stand, she’s rushing over to him and Traci, hands clenched together at the center of her chest.

_"Where are Forager and Miss Martian?!”_ Her voice reaches an octave Conner’s not sure it ever _has_ reached for as long as it’s been hers, and he growls—not at her, but at losing his vague hope that she would spot them while at her higher vantage point. Scanning for specific heat signatures within the walls of an inferno is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but just as he prepares to blink infrared coloration out of his vision and search for them on foot, horizontal motion amidst the descending masses of crumbling debris catches his eye. What at first reads as one oscillating form separates into two as it moves closer, moving in sync—one touched in places with yellow and red, one _blazing_ with it—and two heartbeats, unsynchronized, steadily grow louder in his ears. A black dot emerges from the fire, one Conner could easily mistake for Sphere for its size and movement as it comes clearer into view, but they didn’t bring Sphere on this mission, they brought—

“ _Forager_!” Violet calls out with ecstatic relief, waving him over to them with both arms.

Forager uncurls his body and runs up to meet them on two feet, smoke wisping off his shoulders, his longer arms flailing with effort and his short arms—

His short arms clinging to M’gann.

“Forager—” Forager drops to his knees, panting. “Forager _found_ Miss Martian!” His panting turns to clicks as he catches his breath and gingerly lays M’gann out in the grass. “Miss Martian pushed Forager through a window— _errrk_ —telekinetically, when Superboy shouted ‘Get out!’ Forager _did not_ understand at first, but…”

Traci and Violet’s gasps behind him faintly register at the edges his hearing. The heaving of M’gann’s breath, on the other hand, is front and center. Burns touch the edge of her jaw, her shoulder, her waist, her thigh—mostly on her left, but they run along the backs of both her forearms. He can imagine her having raised her arms to try shielding herself, instinctually, hopelessly. Bits of gravel and charred wood stick in exposed tissue and cling to the ash-gray edges of dark, mottled patches of skin—telekinesis would have kept debris at bay only as long as she could have stayed conscious in the heat, but once it fell around her it must have blocked the flames themselves from overtaking her completely.

That may have saved her life, or just delayed the inevitable.

“… _Forager_ understands now. Forager’s shell can withstand more heat that both Forager _and_ Miss Martian knew.” A long, low groan thrums with concern at the back of Forager’s throat. “What does Hive—does _Squad_ do now?”

Conner pulls her head onto his lap to elevate it, but for a moment, he can’t find the breath in his own body with which to speak.

“We—”

“It-it is okay!” Violet drops to her knees beside him, hands trembling but outstretched, and she flashes a desperate smile at him. “I-I can heal her burns, just as easy as I heal me!”

“R-right,” Conner breathes out. The Bioship has equipment—they can get M’gann on an IV, oxygen, bring out the salve and compresses—that would just help her chances. All the procedure he’d drilled into his head for this, and he’d forgotten they have a healer now. Delighted chirps from Forager, and an audible “phew!” from Traci, and Violet’s violet aura starts to hum to life. The same aura quickly manifests around M’gann.

Then nothing. The hum of the glow, and the rasping of M’gann’s breath. The purple light clings to her body like another skin, but the skin underneath it doesn’t change.

Violet’s eyes dart back and forth across M’gann’s form, and her lower lip starts to tremble. “It-it sometimes takes longer than—than I would like, but—” Her aura flares brighter around her, and the one projected onto M’gann responds in kind.

Still no change.

“I don’t understand, my powers _can_ be affected by emotions, b-but I am _sure_ I am able to heal burns! Oh, but now I am _not_ sure—and if I am not sure, then my emotions will—”

Her aura starts to fade, and her dark eyes widen in horror as the light returns to them and leaves her hands.

“No! I will not be able—I _can’t_ —”

“ _Hey,_ whoa, no, you got this!” Traci smacks her hands down onto Violet’s shoulders, spooking Violet hard enough to shut down her panic. “Trust me, I know _all about_ emotions screwing up your powers, and we _just saw you_ heal your legs! You just have to focus!” She gives Violet’s shoulders an encouraging pat before taking two wide steps back, followed by several more. “And I’m scooting waaaay back in case your bad luck’s me.”

“Focus…” Violet says to herself in between steadying breaths, ones that could be sympathetic or even purposely timed to M’gann’s own—which, Conner realizes, could even be the key. She leans in closer and shuts her eyes, letting her aura wash back over herself and M’gann.

The burn running from the side of M’gann’s ribs down her waist chafes against itself with the heaving of her breath, and the only thing keeping Conner from pulling the rest of her body into his arms to try to elevate that wound as well is the potential of disrupting the aura’s process. He can still watch it closely, though, as its blackened edges begin quivering promisingly under Violet’s light. But rather than shrink away, the wound erupts in a fresh path towards M’gann’s sternum, the heat of it burning through bio-cloth to expose more rupturing skin. A cry escapes M’gann’s throat and turns to a seethe through gritted teeth, and her breath quickens with pain.

Violet lets out a scream of her own, eyes wide and fixated on the further-opened wound, and she snuffs out her aura like a flame. Traci runs up to catch her as she shoves herself back and away from M’gann with her legs.

_“What did I do?!”_

“That wasn’t you.” Conner turns M’gann’s head to the side carefully to inspect her jaw, and sure enough, the burn there has crept up her cheek and down the back of her neck. Thankfully, its new growth has kept to the surface, not penetrating deeper than the top layer of skin. For now. “She’s a Martian, heat destabilizes her form—the longer we leave these burns untreated, the more they’re going to eat away at her. Halo, we _have_ other options—I don’t get why either, but this isn’t working. _Try again_ once we’re back in the Bioship.”

“ _Hrrrrrrm_.” Forager taps Conner on the shoulder and elbow simultaneously. “Forager has considered something— _glk-glk_ — _very_ bad.”

_You and me both_ , Conner thinks, and nothing could top the ever-increasing potential of M’gann decaying alive in his hands. “Tell me.”

“ _If_ Forager recalls correctly— _hrrm_ —Forager has only seen Halo heal… _Halo_.”

“ _No,_ ” Violet breathes out in a whisper. “ _No!_ I remember—I can heal! Heal others! I…” Her hand goes to chest, and realization dawns on her face. “I… _I_ have not, n-not yet, yet I _know_ …”

“Your powers came from a Mother-Box,” Conner says, a realization hitting him as well. “They may be universal translators, but they’re _not_ universal healers. It could be that you’re only able to influence other New Gods’ tech, like the Father-Box in Victor, and the body your soul bonded to.”

Violet’s gaze drops to the ground, and she goes silent—vocally. Her heart bangs with panic against the inside of her chest, against his ears. His own heart clenches for her.

But with M’gann out, he’s leader.

“Thirteen, take Halo. Forager, bring the Bioship around. I’ll wait here with Miss Martian—move her more than necessary, and we risk agitating the burns.”

Forager nods. Traci coaxes Violet up to her feet, and the three of them head off towards the ship.

M’gann’s head rolls in his lap as if to seek out his touch, and he lays a hand across her forehead to keep it still. Her skin feels drenched enough in sweat that it could easily melt between his fingers; worse is the moist sheen on the burn slowly gnawing away at her cheek. The effort of keeping her breathing constant keeps her eyes wrenched shut, her mouth hanging open—if she can feel him, she can’t respond.

Not physically.

He can’t establish a psychic link on his own, but like how heartbeats reach his ears through a one-way channel, he can _think_ loud enough to be heard. He keeps his hand on her forehead, cusps her unburnt cheek with the other, and bows his head.

_[M’gann, **please** tell me you’re in there.]_

Her mind brushes against his with an almost electric jolt of pain, brief but tingling through his skull and through his skin even after the connection cuts out. She tries again, the sensation softer and dimmer this time, and Conner does his best on his end to will his own mental strength into her grip.

_[—Conner.]_

It’s a world of relief just to hear her voice in something other than a labored breath. _[Wasn’t sure if you were conscious.]_

_[Everyone—]_

_[The only one not fine is you.]_ It’s a bit of a fib, emotionally speaking, but right now _she’s_ all he wants her to worry about. _[Status update. **Please**.]_

_[I—I’m trying to—shift—can’t—]_ Her thinking falls in pattern with her breathing, cutting off as she inhales and projecting out as she exhales. _[Can’t focus— enough to regenerate, just trying—to keep—su… superficial, away—away from—vital organs. It—]_ A tremor runs through her torso, pulls her stomach in tight enough to flash the outline of her ribs, and she groans through clenching teeth. _[The pain keeps—]_

_[Is the pain why you can’t focus?]_

_[—Yes.]_

_[Then offload it onto me. Through the link. As much as you can.]_

_[ **Conner** , you—!] _She forces her eyes open to meet his from below, though they flutter from the strain of looking up. _[You’d **feel** it—your mind isn’t—you’re invulnerable to **damage** —outside—not **pain**!]_

_[I know. So I know what I’m asking. If it will help, do it.]_

Her end of the link goes quiet for a moment as her eyes linger on his—if she’s waiting for him to show hesitance, he’s ready to tell her to quit the staring contest. But her eyes fall back shut as she nudges her brow up further into his hand, and when they open again, they do so with light.

And heat, though not emanating from her eyes themselves. It starts under his skin and builds quick, flooding the space behind his eyes in a smoke-like haze. A bead of sweat rolls off the tip of his nose, disappears somewhere in the fabric of his glove or among the trails of M'gann's own sweat soaking into her collar. Another stings as he blinks it out of his eye. Her breaths start coming slower, lasting longer, pulling air deeper into her chest—and his _own_ chest starts to clench as heat crackles in the bend of his waist, prickles from his elbows to his wrists and up his neck like thousands of needle-thin fingers drumming across his skin. A wave of heat and pressure hits him like a wall, knocks him breathless—the groan he tries to stifle as phantom lacerations rip across his skin, M'gann vocalizes _for_ him, and the pain subsides just as quickly as it flared.

_[No,]_ he chides her over the fast-fading link after catching his breath, and risking jostling her, he reaches for her hand, squeezes an affirmation into it that he wants the connection maintained. Her thumb presses back weakly in response, and fresh, raw heat trickles back into his veins.

His turn for steadying breaths. Her body settles into almost-stillness, but the skin around every burn starts to pucker and dimple. Even with his nerves blazing, he can’t help but find relief in being the only one around to watch; until he could explain, the kids would just see a turn for the worse. Her hand starts to tremble in his grip, just as a thin film of white skin pull itself across the burn on her torso, only to be eaten through by heat—in places. Not entirely. In his own skin, however immovable, what he feels matches what he sees in hers: liquid-like motion slowly smothering the heat, thick yet cotton-soft pressure dulling the pain as the gaps in her flesh wrought by fire fill themselves in, layer by layer. Her brow writhes under his palm with effort, and as he wipes away her sweat, he turns her head to find the burn there replaced by just a light gray flush underneath smooth skin, however sharper her cheekbone now juts against it.

She only has so much mass to redistribute, after all, and only so much strength left to do it. There’s only so much of his own strength that he, even as a living weapon, a living _shield_ , can lend her. Ever. Her chest lies flatter than before as it rises and falls softly now, a patchwork of gray and purple blisters laid into thin skin pulled taut across her ribs, but the heart inside goes sleep-like calm. Her head rolls against his thigh with a moan, and her eyes fall shut. The link fizzles out.

\--

“…No life signs, but enough of a smell that we thought we’d at least be retrieving bodies. No kids, though, just the bombs. Subterraneous sensors—our scans didn’t pick ‘em up. Whoever planted them didn’t just not wanna be traced, they wanted to _punish_ anyone who came along to play hero.”

“That is… certainly one interpretation of events.”

The Bioship’s screen projects Kaldur’s face crisply against the hazy backdrop of smoke dissipating across the night sky, and magnifies it to larger than life proportions, making his raised eyebrow impossible to miss. Conner leans forward in his seat and sighs, hands anchored to the ship’s control orbs.

“Yeah, forgive me if it’s a little _biased_.”

“I do. After all, I… had expected Miss Martian, as squad leader, to be the one giving me this report.”

The wording could pass for cold formality, but concern projects through the eyes on the screen just as clearly as incredulity before it, and Conner’s own expression can only be giving away so much. They’re tiptoe words, considering the worst but touching on it delicately, letting him fill in the blanks at his own pace. He can’t help but appreciate the thought.

And as it stands, her pulse may beat soft and steady in the periphery of his hearing, but the accompanying chime of the heartbeat monitor makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He’s sure Kaldur can hear it, too.

“We all got caught in the explosion. Rest of us are fine now, but she got it worst. She’s stable, though. She’s recovering.”

“Good. I will have a bed at the medical bay prepared for your arrival.”

“Thanks. And, no offense, but I gotta say—it’s _kinda_ a relief being down to just _one_ o’you on the Team.”

Kaldur’s mouth quirks up in a strange smile. “You refer to the extreme sensitivity to heat shared by Martians and Atlanteans?”

Conner smiles back sheepishly. “Yeah.”

“Some _may_ be more readily encountered than others, my friend, but _none_ of us are without our _known_ vulnerabilities.”

“ _Ouch_ ,” Conner replies, breathing out a shaky laugh. With every twinge of blistering heat that echoes through his skin, he has to remind his body that it was never burnt to begin with. A little humor takes the edge off. 

And he’ll need himself sturdy soon, because the muffled sobbing from behind the bridge wall shows no sign of letting up.

Kaldur signs off with a smirk and a nod, just as two claws tap Conner’s arm yet again in two places at once.

“Forager is ready to take Bioship’s controls,” Forager says as his smaller hands rub together with eagerness, and a larger one is already laid across the top of the chair. “Forager did not want Forager’s shell to dirty Bioship’s seat, but Thirteen has done an _excellent_ job of cleaning Forager!” He turns his back for Conner to see, craning his short neck over his wide shoulder. “At least, as far as Forager can tell.”

The soot marks on Forager’s armor are gone, leaving only the gaps the flames gnawed into it along the trails of his shell’s natural bumps. Red peaks out from underneath in scab-like patches, but aside from some light flaking, the exposed areas seem smooth and firm enough to be the surface of the shell itself, nothing deeper. Conner flicks some stray black crumbs off an otherwise clean and undamaged area, then gives the area a pat before sliding out of the seat.

“She’s all yours, kid. Anything for the mission’s _MVP_.”

Forager tilts his head to the side as he turns back around, horns twitching and throat clicking quizzically. All four arms go to his hips as he then shakes his head and sighs. “Forager supposes _‘M-V-P’_ is yet _another_ new way of identifying Forager, when Forager is simply Forager—though Forager has come to understand that _such_ is the Earthling way, and so Forager must accept.” Forager climbs into the seat. “ _The MVP_ will take the MVP’s seat.”

Conner’s mouth twitches at the “Earthling” quip, but he supposes turnabout is fair play. “It…. _tends to be_ the Earthling way, but ‘MVP’ is a _title_ , not a new name. Victor could probably tell you more about it, but it stands for ‘Most Valuable Player’—means as far as I’m concerned, tonight _you_ were our squad’s biggest asset, throwin’ yourself right back into the fire to help. We need you down in the field more often! Not just when we think we’ll need an extra two pairs of hands.”

The sounds with which Forager responds come out halfway between human-like laughter and Bug chatter, and if not for the thick red exo-shell, Conner could almost imagine a blush forming on his cheeks. It’s with a familiar kind of bashful pride that Forager plants his hands firmly on the controls but keeps his head down, and not _every_ non-humanoid alien has the benefit of shapeshifting to help them convey emotions the way… most people on Earth are used to seeing.

It’s only after having seen the damage done by the fire to Forager’s armor does Conner notice the state of his own shirt. Frayed edges around his neck and shoulders, and noticeable breeze holes all along his back—it explains the strength of the singe smell that’s been stuck in his nose since coming aboard. As he passes the wall separating the ship’s bridge and hold, he contemplates changing into a fresh shirt, but as long as it’s not dangling off him to the point of distraction, it’s low on his priority list.

The cradle-like canopy formed over M’gann by the Bioship’s own volition beams soft, cool light down on her, and even from a distance, Conner can already see her gaunt cheeks filling back in. Her arms lie flat and still, both bare up to her elbows from the heat eating way at her suit and one hooked to an IV—and all he wants is to thread his fingers through hers into another lifeline and stay there for the rest of the ride, still as the IV stand itself. But against the opposite wall, Traci’s arm has formed its own awkward arch around the hunch of Violet’s back. Violet keeps her face buried in her own arms, muffling her sniffling sobs, but her twitching shoulders still broadcast them loud and clear, and Traci shoots Conner a helpless look.

He knows where he’s needed.

“You’re takin’ this hard.” Conner crouches down in front of Violet, rubs the back of his neck as he addresses her hood. “We didn’t all make it out unscathed, but we made it out alive. M’gann’s better at asking this kind of thing than I am, but… Violet…”

Violet raises her head just enough to peek out at him, with a look asking either if it’s _okay_ to speak or if she really _has_ to. Either way, Conner nods.

Violet straightens her posture and rubs her nose on her sleeve. Her gaze hangs down by her knees as she takes a deep breath. “Violet… my name… Brion gave it to me. Will gave me the last name Harper, and Artemis gave me ‘Halo.’ It… it helps me understand who I am, what I am _now_ , having these names like Violet Harper and Halo that are mine. I—my powers, each one has been so frightening to discover, so strange and so _painful_ —but each one I have come to understand. You—Artemis and you all have trained me, and I _believed_ I _understood_ —”

Violet’s face starts to crumple, lips drawing in tight. No diploma or supersenses needed for Traci to know her arm could use a reassuring rub. The sudden motion startles Violet enough for her to meet Traci’s sympathetic eyes, and in them, Violet seems to find the confidence to slowly turn and meet Conner’s.

“My… violet aura… I understood it to be the power to heal, it is what I have always known of it—the memories of the Mother-Box _tricked_ me.” She says it with surprising anger, coming from her, but her brow can only maintain its hard crease for a second before her face softens back into doubt, and she pulls her knees closer to her chest. “I— _I_ —do not remember healing others, but in my mind, I just _knew_ —but the knowledge is _not_ _mine_ , and I am not what I am supposed to be! How can I be of any help to you all when I am not what I am supposed to be?!”

Conner knows enough about the average body to know there’s no such thing as a “heartstring,” but he can swear something already taut in his chest yanks and snaps at her words. He wants to say _“you’re sounding more like one of us every day,”_ though he’s not sure how comforting the sentiment would be. A hand on her shoulder is a better start.

“You’re not _supposed to be_ anything other than yourself. Believe me, I know what it’s like learning your limits the hard way: I didn’t know I couldn’t fly until the first time I leapt, and gravity started pulling me ‘n’ Kaldur—I mean, you know him as Aquaman—back down an elevator shaft. Underground. Fifty-two levels.”

The details of Cadmus—sharp, clear, and tangible, like the shattered glass of his pod—are forever uncomfortably accessible in his memory. After all, before funneling stock information into his psyche, the G-Gnomes first shared with him the only things they themselves ever really knew.

“In _my_ mind, I could fly. And that’s still the only place I can. We _all_ have limits, that’s why we need each other. That’s why we become teams.”

He looks back to Traci to find her nodding and raising her palm for a high-five; Conner bumps it with a fist, and Traci snorts. Conner rolls his eyes, feigning embarrassment. Violet watches the exchange with wide and attentive eyes before bumping Traci’s palm with her own fist, and a corner of her mouth twitches with the start of a smile.

With her head raised high enough, the tear streaks on Violet’s face catch the light, and Conner can see they run all the way down past her chin. She was crying for herself, sure, and with every right to do, but if he had to guess, it wasn’t for herself alone.

“If you can only heal yourself,” he continues, “that’s _fine_. That’s _still_ helpin’ us out because then we don’t have to be scared for _you_ the way…”

He swallows hard. The smelted steel that had once buried him in place, the blood-red haze of adrenaline that had once smothered his thoughts—it’s not the first time he’s failed to protect M’gann from fire, or failed to save her on his own. “The way we were _all_ just scared for M’gann. And even then, if you end up _never_ havin’ to use your violet aura again, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Getting hurt _hurts_.”

“Getting hurt hurts,” Violet echoes back at him, blinking with thought for a moment before nodding. “This is _very_ true, even though I always heal. But I _can_ heal, and I do.”

Conner smiles. “Sounds to me like you really are getting the hang of things.”

With a sniffle, Violet gives him a wide smile back.

_[Conner?]_ M’gann’s voice brushes feather-soft against the surface of his mind, and as he lets her presence settle there, he can feel it expand to reach the other three. _[Team?]_

Violet and Traci are both still inexperienced enough with the link to search overhead on reflex for the voice’s source, but Violet’s attention quickly turns to out past Conner’s shoulder, enough that she _shoves_ him aside as she stumbles back to her feet and rushes over to the hold’s opposite wall. Conner can’t help but pause to frown and blink for a moment, and Traci snorts out another laugh.

“You are okay! I am so relieved!” Violet cheers as M’gann lifts herself up into a sitting position, cold packs sliding off her chest. Even from a distance, Conner can tell by the curve of her spine and the sag of her shoulders that it’s a telekinetic cheat that’s keeping her upright, not her full strength having returned, but if Violet’s face is anything to judge it by, it’s a worthwhile deception.

…Though if there’s no such thing as a worthwhile deception, then M’gann gets her comeuppance in the form of Violet clapping her arms around her with an audible _thump_ —to Conner, at least—and Conner watches M’gann’s eyes squeeze shut in a silent wince. A smile doesn’t leave her face for long, though, and she meets his eyes from across the room.

_[Thank you,]_ she thinks to him, and he can sense it’s through a private channel.

_[For helping you regenerate? No problem. Forager’s the one that actually got you out.]_

_[For helping everyone. All I could sense from anyone before was fear. I couldn’t even tell if they were alright. But it looks like **you** worked your magic.]_

Conner chuckles out loud. _[Magic’s Traci and Zatanna’s thing. I just got a mouth on me.]_

“Forager is also relieved Miss Martian is okay!” Forager calls out from the bridge.

“Oh! I am sorry,” Violet says as she pulls back from the hug, “You are… not _naked_ , or _goojy,_ but you have been exposed in places, and you are… a little sticky.” Violet inspects her own arms and proceeds to furiously _thwap_ at the sleeve that took the brunt of her tears and snot. “Oh, and I am _also_ a little sticky!”

_[It’s **fine** ,]_ M’gann responds over the squad link after opening and closing her mouth with a strained smile, fingertips floating up to a throat wrought raw by heat and heaving. _[I’m happy to see you’re okay, too!]_

“There was a… _small_ hurt, but I healed,” Violet says it more to Conner than to M’gann as she glances back at him, and Conner gives her a nod. “And I did not know before today that the only one I could heal is myself. I am sorry, I was unable to help you more than that.”

_[Well then, I’m sorry we were unable to fulfill our mission objective, but any new thing you’re able to learn about yourself? That’s still a victory, no matter how small.]_

“Thank you,” Violet responds with a nod. “And thank you, Conner, Traci.”

“Forager would like to be thanked!”

Violet cups her hands around her mouth to shout back towards the bridge. “Then Violet Harper thanks _you_ , Forager!”

_[Add me to that!]_ M’gann interjects. _[I hear I have **Forager** to thank for pulling me out of the fire.]_

“Forager thanks Violet Harper and Miss Martian for thanking Forager!”

_[And please don’t sell yourself short, Conner.]_ Back to their private link. Her mental voice quiets into a whisper, muffled as if by distance even as he makes his way to her side, sliding into the space behind her on the bed-slab and gently leaning her body up against his. He can at least do his part to help her keep up appearances. But she yields fully into the soft pressure of his arm around her, lets her head fall back onto his shoulder and roll into the crook of his neck. _[You’re not just a **mouth** , or a body, you know. Your heart and your mind are the most powerful I know.]_

The link fades out—she falls asleep—before he can either challenge her on the praise or address her first instinct around fire being _anything_ other than getting herself to safety. Both can wait until later, though, when the finger he strokes now with his thumb has a ring on it again, and when Wolf is stretched out at their feet across the living room floor. For now, his ears can tune the heartbeat monitor out into just a gentle reminder. Traci’s phone screen blips softly as she taps out a text, and Violet giggles as she leans over Traci’s shoulder and points to her choice of emojis to include. Forager murmurs something half-disguised in clicks and followed quickly by his own laughter to the Bioship, and Conner can swear a laugh-like revving in the low, constant hum of the Bioship’s pulse comes in response. The frayed edges of his shirt flutter with M’gann’s breath as she sighs deeply against his chest, and his own heart falls in rhythm with the other four clustered around him, beating easy and calm.


End file.
